Long before he was a household name, Emraan Hashmi was just a young man with a pair of earrings and a passport — a combination that seemed to set off alarm bells for immigration officers worldwide. At the recent trailer launch for his upcoming Netflix series, Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web, the actor took a trip down memory lane, reflecting on the days when his vacations felt more like the start of a crime thriller.
Emraan HashmiProfiling in the early 2000s
That brief panic when you pass security — even when you’ve done nothing wrong? Emraan expressed the feeling by comparing it to the rush of spotting a traffic cop while driving within the limit. He admitted that walking through the green channel — the lane for those with nothing to declare — often felt like a high-stakes gamble.
When asked if has ever been stopped at the green channel, Emraan said, “No, I think they have been very sweet to me. Whenever I have travelled back, they have been very sweet. But there is this sense of overpowering fear, it’s not logical. It’s like when you learn how to drive, but when you see an RTO officer on the road, you suddenly get anxious. So that’s what happens. When I’m travelling alone, even though I’ve packed only clothes, you still feel like you’re carrying 100 kilos of contraband in your bag while walking through the green channel.”
The actor revealed that his solo travels in the early 2000s were frequently interrupted by random checks. He suspects that his aesthetic at the time — specifically his earrings — might have triggered certain stereotypes among customs officials.
He said, “But it’s not at all logical. I have been called out at immigration checks very early on, probably because of earrings or stuff, when I used to travel alone. But now, when they see me with my sweet family, they don’t suspect me. Earlier, in the early 2000s, I used to get whisked away to the side quite a bit. That is called profiling. I fit the bill of somebody, but I don’t know who that person was.”
Interestingly, the profiling seemed to vanish as his life changed. Emraan noted that travelling with his family nowadays is a much smoother experience, as he no longer attracts the same level of suspicion he did as a solo traveller in his youth.
About his new show
In Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web, Emraan moves to the other side of the interrogation table. In his new series, created by Neeraj Pandey, he plays a customs officer tasked with dismantling smuggling rings. The cast also includes Sharad Kelkar, Zoya Afroz, and Nandish Singh Sandhu. The show will release on Netflix on January 14.
Coming off the heels of his performance in the courtroom drama Haq (2025) alongside Yami Gautam, Emraan’s transition into the world of customs enforcement promises a gritty, deep dive into the murky world of illegal trade. It seems the man who was once whisked away to the side is finally the one calling the shots!